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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



9 



THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS 



History, Poetry & Romance, 



AN ADDRESS 

Delivcrcii before the Teachers Association of the City of Brooklyn, 
APRIL 17, 1874. 



THOMAS W. FIELD, 

Superintendent of Public Instruction. 






iSroolUgn : 

R. M. Whiting, Jr. & Co., Printers, 342 Fulton St, 
T874. 



THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS 



History, Poetry & Ro^nance. 



AN ADDRESS 

Delivered before the Teachers' Association of the City of Brooklyn, 
APRIL 17, 1874. 



R. M. Whiting, Jr. «& Co., Printers, 342 Fulton St. 



1874. 



ADDRESS. 



On this, our first greeting in that natural antago- 
nism of speaker and audience, I have determined 
that if I have anything of the nature of instruction 
to give, it shall be inculcated by illustration rather 
than by dictation. To announce ex cathedra the 
duties and privileges of a people, or of a class, is a 
function bestowed upon only a few ; it belongs, 
doubtless, to the man of God, but seldom to the man 
of the people. 

One reflection which always affects me in assum- 
ing the role of teacher, is, that society has that 
somewhat embarrassing habit of requiring the preach- 
er's practice of his own tenets. I am, therefore, 
timid in propounding educational dogmas, or de- 
nouncing long-practised modes as heretical, lest I 
should be met by that old retort given by the gen- 
tlest and divinest Teacher to the Pharisees, begin- 
ning with ^^/t^'jrzV^^/^^^iz/^. How needless, too, where 
the sweet and gentle lives of the good are preaching 
such divine sermons of unselfish toil, and ceaseless 



watching over others' good, or those saddest of all 
lessons, everywhere told on the wayside of life, with 
the unhappy worshippers of evil, fallen or falling al- 
ways in our view. Let me then recall from the 
dim records of the vanishing past the stories of 
some who have marched before me, or who have 
been immortalized by imagination and history. 

The portfolio of character-pictures I open to you 
this afternoon is not merely a collection of allegori- 
cal designs, but is, when not avowedly drawn from 
the pages of romance or poetry, a group of por- 
traits of actual and once sentient beings whom I have 
known. 

Few of them are now living, and you may amuse 
yourselves by fancying that they are recognizable 
in some you have known, but I assure you that it 
is scarcely probable (except, perhaps, in clairvoyant 
perception) that such recognition can be real. 

Very early in the world's history, learned ladies 
assumed the office of instructors ; and so potent was 
their influence that the names and merits of some of 
them have been ringing through the ages ever since. 
The daughter of a Greek philosopher rendered her 
name immortal by the instructions she gave to her 
father's scholars. 

The philosopher indulged himself in such profound 
reveries on the mysteries of things that this learned 
lady delivered the addresses of the Academy to 
throngs of eager pupils. But as she was equally 
remarkable for her beauty and her learning, the wise 
old man required her to wear a veil to obscure the 
charming features of the enchanting lecturess, lest 
they should distract the attention of his pupils. Who 



5 , 

can help regretting that he was not privileged to 
study in that school ? But I think all of our sex would 
have been constantly praying that the veil should be 
very thin or altogether be dispensed with. 

Throuo-h the cloistered aisles of fourteen centuries 
one name comes like a strain of musical chords from 
a distant y^olian harp, full of sweetness, but wailing 
with the sadness of a dirge. It is in the infant 
years of Christianity, and science herself yet in her 
cradle, when, in the city which for a thousand years, 
at the mouth of the Nile, was the queen of com- 
merce, a school which attracted the attention of the 
learned from all lands was taught by a woman. 
Her learning and talents commanded the respect 
of philosophers ; her eloquence and wit ravished 
the admiration of the populace ; but her grace of 
manner and surpassing loveliness of person placed 
the world at her feet. This learned, accomplished, 
and beautiful lady was Hypatia, the daughter of an 
eminent teacher of astronomy, in the Alexandrian or 
Platonic school, who initiated her into the mysteries 
of the knowledge then termed science. 

The genius of an early writer, who has just left 
our shores for his native land, has added the charms 
of fiction to the already romantic fame of Hypatia. 
You who wish to read her glowing story^ which is 
more history than fiction, even in his book, should 
seek it in Charles Kingsley's enthralling pages. 

The reputation of this lovely instructress for learn- 
ing had become so established at the period of his 
death, that she was elected to occupy the chair he 
had filled with so much celebrity. It was no light 
honor to be thought worthy of this seat, made emi- 



nent by its occupation for one hundred years, with 
the most eminent professors and instructors of the 
age. Hamonius, Hierocles, and other famed philoso- 
phers of that period, which abounded with learned 
men, had made it celebrated by their lectures. And 
now this desk, sacred and imposing, with the memo- 
ries and fame of the sages who had thence delivered 
their lessons of wisdom, was filled by a lovely and 
gentle lady, who inspired her lovers with the devo- 
tion of earthly passion, and awed them to humility 
by the majesty of the divine truths she uttered. 

The lectures of Hypatia drew scholars from the 
most celebrated schools of Greece and Rome, and 
inspired them with a zeal for learning that made their 
names immortal. 

Synesius, afterwards Bishop of Ptolemais, who 
was renowned by the writers of that day for the 
possession of great talents and universal knowledge, 
became one of her disciples. We have his testimony, 
joined to that of Socrates, Nicephorus, Gregoras, and 
many others, to attest the extraordinary learning and 
genius of Hypatia. " The purity of her morals and 
the dignified propriety of her conduct commanded 
reverence and regard from even those who were in- 
competent to judge of her learning and talents. She 
was consulted by the magistrates in all cases of diffi- 
culty and importance, and her decisions were adopted 
as the results of judicial acumen and eminent justice." 

She frequented the societies of men and lived in 
the midst of their schools and assemblies with an 
untarnished reputation ; for the lustre of her talents 
and attainments was softened by the unassuming 
simplicity of her manners, and the fascinations of 



her person were chastened by the purity of her 
life. Her extraordinary attainments, amiable qual- 
ities, and bewitching beauty procured her the love and 
addresses of the most eminent men of the age ; but 
they besought her for her hand in vain. She had so 
early fallen deeply in love with science, that her heart 
would never after admit a rival passion to usurp its 
place. But although the austerity of her manners 
could suppress those emotions in her disciples to 
which her beauty gave birth, yet it could not pre- 
serve her from the machinations of ambition and 
revenge. The turbulent and unscrupulous Cyril, 
Bishop of Alexandria, conceived against her the most 
malignant hatred on account of her friendship for 
Orestes, the Roman governor of that city. x'\t a 
period of great popular frenzy, this ambitious and 
cruel patriarch caused her to become, by his slanders, 
the object of hatred to the ignorant and bigoted pop- 
ulace. On returning one day in a sedan from her 
lecture, she was seized by the merciless mob of 
Alexandria, stripped naked in the Church of the 
Caesars ; her lovely face scarred and gashed by their 
cruel blows ; her limbs mutilated with scourgings, 
and at last inhumanly murdered by cutting her to 
pieces with broken tiles. 

As if for ever to hide from human recollection the 
memory of this execrable deed, her murderers gath- 
ered the fragments which had once composed the 
beautiful body of this accomplished lady, and burned 
them to ashes in the Cinaron. 

The flames which consumed them have illuminated 
the name and fame of Hypatia the teacher, through 



the Moom and shadows of more dian fourteen hun- 
dred years. 

In romance and in satire, there has always been a 
mythical character representing the school-mistress 
or the master, which has been accepted as the typi- 
cal representative of their class. How widely this 
myth of the scoffing race of scribblers has differed 
from the actual instructor, it will be the province of 
this essay to discuss. 

The carking race of fiction caricaturists, whose 
deity is ridicule and whose worship is mockery, have 
not scrupled to paint the school-mistress with their 
usual cynicism. Let us view the picture drawn by 
their pen, dipped in sulphuric acid— the base of which 
corrosive agent you all know to be brimstone, an 
elementary substance quite appropriate as the me- 
dium of their criticism ; it is such as they are fond of 
depicting her, and the portrait is usually painted 
thus. 

The typical school- mistress of fiction is a lady of 
twenty to fifty years of age, tall, not by any means 
ill-looking, who wears convex glasses, which glare 
on you like the head-lights of a locomotive, and 
thrusts pluperfect participles and isosceles triangles 
down your throat on the slightest provocation. 

If she ever had a lover, she amazed him to the 
borders of epilepsy, or made him a paralytic for life, 
by requiring him, on his first visit, as a prelude to 
marital intimations, to parse some of the toughest 
sentences in Paradise Lost. 

She is constantly tripping you up for indulging in 



vernacular Inaccuracies ; and, if her admirer ever has 
the hardihood to offer his heart in exchange for her 
hand, she rephes : " Cannot you contrive, sir, to 
make your verbs agree with their nominative in 
number and person ? " 

She writes treatises on the laws of hygiene, abstains 
from coffee and hot food, indulges in the mild 
pleasantry of calling pies poison, and reprimands, 
with becoming severity, the thoughtless voluptuary 
who eats candy and drinks lemonade. With all this 
abstinence, she lives and dies a dyspeptic. The pos- 
sible enormity of imbibing wine or stronger pota- 
tions she never permits herself to contemplate; and 
all the vices, crimes, and frailties of mankind affect 
her as little as the parallax of Jupiter does the 
average Patagonian. Should she be accosted at 
Niagara by an enthusiastic gentleman who Incauti- 
ously declares the cataract to be the most wonderful 
object of contemplation in the universe, she would 
instantly reply : " Sir, you must be profoundly ig- 
norant of the precession of the equinoxes ! " Picture, 
If you can, the dumb astonishment and voiceless de- 
pression with which the crushed enthusiast moves 
away ! 

Such has the satirist portrayed the mythical 
teacher, unconscious that beneath the chill demeanor 
of the pedant, glows a gentle soul that needed only 
a domestic hearth to kindle with the warmest radi- 
ance of wife and mother. 

The romancers have done much to envelope the 
popular conception of the school-mistress with the 
fallacy which considers her either an ogress or a 



lO 

sentimentalist. In England, the character is indis- 
solubly associated with imbecility and tottering 
age ; and the conception has been derived from the 
fictions of poets and novelists. From Shenstone to 
Dickens, English imaginative works have kept alive 
the same antiquated myth ; and no one has done 
more to foster and keep alive this legend than the 
great novelist just deceased. His rare old school- 
dames start up with crutch and switch from the 
pages of David Copperfield and Great Expectations ; 
so naturally associated with his wonderful pictures of 
boy-life that they do not at all surprise us, but seem 
as naturally allied to their adjuncts as do gipsies to a 
copse in a quiet dell. Indeed, we expect to greet 
one of these venerable school-mistresses, with her 
birch and dram, in each of those narratives which 
he makes so vivid with the sorrows and trials of the 
children of his fancy. 

More than a century before, however, the poet 
Shenstone had sketched with almost equal strength 
of hand his " School-mistress " : 

In every village marked with little spire, 

Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame. 
There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire, 

A matron old, whom we school-mistress name ; 
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame ; 

They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent. 
Awed by the power of this relentless dame ; 

And ofttimes, on vagaries idly bent, 
For unkempt hair, or task unconned, are soreh^ shent. 

Where sits the dame, disguised in look profound, 

And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around. 

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snoAv, 
Emblem right meet of decency does yield ; 

Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trow. 
As is the harebell that adorns the field ; 



II 



And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield 

Twajr birchen sprays ; with anxious fear entwined. 

With dark distrust, and sad repentance filled ; 
And steadfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, 

And fury uncontroled, and chastisement unkind. 

Right well she knew each temper to descry, 

To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ; 
Some with vile copper prise exalt on high. 

And some entice with pittance small of praise ; 
And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays ; 

Even absent, she the reins of power doth hold, 
While with quaint arts the giddy crowd she sways ; 

Forewarned, if little bird their pranks behold, 
'Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold. 

Lo ! now with state she utters her command ; 

Eftsoons the urchins to their task repair. 
Their books of stature small they take in hand. 

Which with pellucid horn secured are. 
To save from finger wet the letters fair : 

The work so gay, that on their back is seen, 
St. George's high achievements does declare ; 

On which thilk wight that has y-gazing been, 
Kens the forthcoming rod — unpleasing sight, I ween. 

Out of the pages of romance have sprung also 
some of the most nobly human characters, which re- 
present the instructress as woman in her best estate, 
whom satire has not deformed, and caricature un- 
sexed. Such will you find in the portrait which 
Charlotte Bronte has drawn of her own right 
womanly self in Jane Eyre and Villette ; women 
whom I am grateful that it has been my fortune to 
know living, breathing examples of. 

What fine, noble creatures of fancy and nature 
in partnership they were, making the world glad and 
good wherever they went ! Not angels altogether, 
though, for the sharpness of resentfulness is an abso- 
lute need in woman's most exalted character. The 
grape-sugar which gives the golden wine of Tokay 
its bouquet and flavor is not sweet ; it is represented in 



12 



the chemist's laboratory by a compound of cane-sugar 
and — and — can I say it ? — sulphuric acid. 

Villette is a poetess in her sensibilities, a Sister of 
Charity in her devotion to her pupils, but a woman 
in her social resentments. How she does detest, 
with a poet's refinement, a nun's charity and a wo- 
man's antipathy, the cautious, composed, and absorb- 
ingly selfish Madame Beck, principal of the school ! 
And when the cat-like movements of this most 
excellent, but most suspicious lady, reveal her pre- 
sence only by her shadow, how involuntarily our 
teacher shudders, as though she had seen the ghost 
which nightly frightens her superstitious pupils. But 
Madame Beck is herself a fime conception of the teach- 
er in whom the woman has been mostly absorbed. 
Conscientious, sly, suspicious, generous, and religious 
in her way, she is a teacher to be prized, if not a 
woman to be loved. 

The portrait painted by the master-limner Dickens, 
is of a lineal descendant of Shenstone's original, and 
perhaps a faithful counterfeit of one he had known 
forty years before. 

Listen to his inimitable description of Pip's first 
school : 

"The educational scheme, or course, established 
by Mr. Wopsley's great-aunt, may be resolved into the 
follov/ing synopsis : 

"The pupils ate apples, and put straws down one 
another's backs, until Mr. Wopsley's great-aunt col- 
lected her energies, and made an indiscriminate 
totter at them with a birch rod. After receiving the 
charge with every form of derision, the pupils formed 
in line, and buzzingly passed a ragged book from 



13 

hand to hand. The book had an alphabet In it, 
some figures and tables, and a little spelling ; that is to 
say — it had once. 

"As soon as the volume began to circulate, Mr. 
Wopsley's great-aunt fell into a state of coma, arising 
either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The 
pupils then entered among themselves upon a com- 
petitive examination on the subject of boots, with 
the view of ascertainino- who could tread the hardest 
upon whose toes. This part of the course was 
usually lightened by several single combats between 
them and Biddy, the maid-of-all-work of Mr. Wopsley, 
and Mr. Wopsley's great-aunt's assistant. When the 
fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a 
page, then we all read aloud what we could, or 
rather what we couldn't, in a frightful chorus; Biddy 
leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice, and 
none of us having the least notion of, or reverence 
for, what we were readino-. When this horrible din 
had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke 
Mr. Wopsley's great- aunt, who staggered at a boy 
fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was under- 
stood to terminate the course for the evening, and 
we emerged into the air with the shrieks of intel- 
lectual victory." 

Having once opened the pages of this necromancer, 
it is impossible to resist their magic influence. As 
they have charmed me to acquiescence, so must you 
listen, though never so reluctant, to one or two 
more excerpts from them. It is something worthy 
of remark that most of the vulgar heroes and 
heroines of Dickens's creation have the most sublime 
respect for the graces of education. 



14 

Joe Gargery announces his serious convictions 
regarding- them with a sagacity and precision which 
would do honor to some learned theorists of our 
days : 

"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you 
must be a common scholar, afore you can be a on- 
common one, I should hope ? The king upon his 
throne, with his crown upon his 'ed, can't sit and 
write his h'acts of parliament in print, without 
having begun when he were an unpromoted prince 
with the halphabet. Ah," added he, with a shake of 
the head that was full of meaning, "and begun with 
A, too, and worked his way to Zed, and I know 
what that is to do — though I can't ezactly say I've 
hever done it.'* 

The theorists we have referred to, who are so fond 
of speculation on the influences which go to affect 
the expanding of the juvenile intellect, are often 
vastly further astray than poor Joe. They remind 
me of the sapient Dogberry, whose enunciations 
upon learning rival theirs in profundity. 

I find it quite impossible to resist the temptation 
of presenting to you that exquisite satire upon these 
wiseacres which Pip's further experience in learning 
furnishes. That dastardly humbug, Pumblechook, 
must have his turn at the educational mill ; or, rather, 
the inquisitorial rack. 

Pip is at breakfast, as It is served in Pumblechook's 
kitchen, when the torture begins. " I considered 
(says Pip) Mr. Pumblechook wretched company, for 
his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. 
On my politely bidding him good-morning, he said 
pompously : ' Seven times nine, boy ? ' Now, how 



15 

should I be able to answer, dogged in that way, in a 
strange place, on an empty stomach ? I was very 
hungry ; but before I had swallowed a morsel, he 
began a running sum that lasted all through break- 
fast. 'Seven,' 'and four,' and 'eight and six?' 
• and two and ten ? ' and so on. And after each 
figure was disposed of, it was as much as I could do 
to get a bite or a sup before the next came ; while 
he sat at his ease, guessing nothing, and eating 
bacon and hot roll in — if I may be allowed the 
expression — a gorging and gormandizing man- 
ner. 

So strongly impressed was Mr. Pumblechook 
with the tranquillizing, not to say subduing, effect 
of numbers upon youthful depravity, that three 
hours later, after accompanying Pip to Miss Habi- 
shani's house, he had, as Pip hoped, finally departed, 
when he reopened the gate, thrust forward his fish- 
head to propound with great impressiveness the 
problem — " And fourteen ? " 

But the wise theorists,on modes and plans of edu- 
cation, had an origin far earlier than Dickens's days. 
Shakespeare himself must have had experience of 
their impertinent interference in his boyhood, for 
even the sapient Dogberry must have his specula- 
tions upon learning and tuition. In the third scene 
of the third act of " Much Ado about Nothing," he 
addresses thus his brother constable : " Come hither, 
neighbor Seacole ; God hath blessed thee with a 
good name. To be a well-favored man is the gift 
of fortune. But to write and to read comes by 
nature." And afterwards he adds: "Well, for your 
favor, sir ; why, give God thanks. But for your 



i6 

reading and writing", let that appear when there 
is need of such vanit3\" 

Midway between the school-mistress of fiction and 
the practical everyday lady with whom we are some-- 
what familiar, dwells a character not commonly found 
in our work-a-day world, nor wholly unknown to the 
poet and novelist. 

The philosophical schoolmam dwells in a practical 
world ; the mythical teacher only in the brain of the 
malignant caricaturist. The two representations, the 
imaginative and the real, are widely diverse in 
their motive, and yet similar in their peculiar- 
ities ; they are like in their very unlikeness. The 
feminine philosopher views everything from the 
stand-point of a syllogism — thus : " Sir, either a thing 
is, or it is not. If it is not, then it cannot be a thing ; 
for thing implies existence, and the not being is no 
thing or nothing. If it is, then it is indisputable ; 
for to discuss it you admit that it has existence pre- 
cisely as it is — you admit everything, therefore you 
have nothing to discuss." By the time this syllogis- 
tic whirlpool has ceased, the bewildered listener is in 
a state of moderate catalepsy. Thus reasoning with 
infinite no-reason, she will prove that nothing is 
equal to everything. She is learned in Wheatley 
and Stewart and Sir William Hamilton ; has read 
Comte and Lewes and Herbert Spencer; has the 
skilfully prepared baits of argument always ready to 
set alluringly the logical trap, which infallibly snaps 
your fingers off if you once touch the tempting morsel. 
Critical to the last degree of refinement, she per- 
mits you to become involved in a conversational 



17 

labyrinth by the enticement of some Jack-'o-lantern 
glimmer of statement ; and then snap go the jaws of 
the argumentative trap, and she complacently tri- 
umphs over your bewilderment. In school she is 
exact and rigid in the performance of her duties, and 
visits Avith eminent severity the delinquencies of her 
pupils. Merciless to herself, in compelling her very 
physical infirmities to yield to her mental vigor 
with relentless self-control ; she looks upon the laxity 
of others with a sort of horror. Her pupils usually 
excel in scholarship and are models of propriety, 
but they go out into the world to learn somewhat 
late, that it is filled with a ver}^ commonplace and 
lax humanity. Solecisms of language are offences 
which her pupils would rather commit suicide than 
incur her scornful indignation for perpetrating. Her 
slight tendency to cynicism is evidenced by frequent 
quotations from Carlyle, but her passion for the mild 
mysticism of Emerson transcends that of a romantic 
school- girl for a dime novel. 

She recites with infinite satisfaction the erudite 
and slightly mystic Brahma: 

If the red sla)''er think he slays. 

Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 

I keep and pass and turn again. 

They reckon ill who leave me out ; 

When me they Qy, I am the wings ; 
I am the doubter and the doubt, 

And I the hjnnn the Brahmin sings. 

The strong gods pine for my abode. 
And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; 

But thou, meek lover of the good. 

Find me, and turn thv back on heaven. 



Her longings for the infinite are always tinged 
with the indefinite. They are so profound in their 
aspirations as to be usually far deeper than the 
soundings of her reason ; and she has always the 
most maidenly unconsciousness that they would be 
perfectly satisfied with a loving husband and a mod- 
est home. 

Her teaching is eminently practical, severe in its 
conformity to literalness, but honest and thorough. 
There is no slipshod, shuffling work ; no neglected 
corners in the housewifery of her tuition. 

Nor is her instruction confined to the strict outline 
and detail of study ; for her hatred of sham and de- 
lusion impels her to strip the tinsel rags from off the 
strutting pageants so common on the stage of life. 
The illusory scenes in its drama, which so beguile 
school-girls, she especially delights in exposing. 
The paltry shifts, the golden crowns made of scrap- 
tin, the splendid castles, hanging gardens, lengthening 
vistas of patriarchal oaks, and boundless parks, she 
glories in showing to be only the reverse of rotting 
canvas, cobwebs, dirt, and tumble-down carpentry, 
which would shame a country blacksmith-shop. In 
this her practical scepticism has almost priceless uti- 
lity. The romantic school-girl just lapsing into love- 
sickness, is well-nigh cured by one of her teacher's 
powerful tonics. 

The glamour of fiction has often, with the power of 
Oberon's spell, made the inamoratas of young girls 
seem to be princes, or at the least counts in dis- 
guise — but one mocking- phrase of our female Men- 
tor destroys the illusion and reveals them to be only 
barber's apprentices. The heroes they were ready to 



19 

adore with all a woman's devotion and a girl's folly, 
prove under the relentless scrutiny of our philosopher 
in crinoline, to be car-drivers. 

For poetry and romance she entertains the most 
sovereign contempt, and looks upon indulgence in 
their fictitious joys and woes as intellectual suicide. 

She has heard of Dickens and Thackeray, but 
should some incautious friend refer to Clive Nezv- 
come or Pickwick, he is lost. She turns with a seve- 
rity in her countenance that convinces him, before 
she speaks, of the frightful turpitude of his offence : 
" Sir, I have read something of history attentively, 
but I never before heard of the characters you have 
named. I must therefore conclude that you obtained 
your information regarding them from fiction ; they, 
consequently, never had an existence, and cannot 
be quoted as authorities." 

Let no one cherish the unjust reflection that, amid 
those rhapsodies, our philosopher schoolmam has 
not the most loyal devotion to the subjects of her 
duty. Whimsical, erratic, transcendental she may 
be, but true woman, underneath all, in her almost 
chivalrous loyalty to her profession. She resents, 
with fervid indiofnation, the lio-htest scoffingf at 
her vocation, and momentarily forgets the ponder- 
ous rule she has adopted in her scheme of feminine 
philosophy. This formula is usually announced at 
the commencement of a discussion — thus : " Sir, let 
us investigate this important subject with dispassion- 
ate ratiocination." All other subjects than that of 
her occupation she finds little difficulty in treating 
with this amiable philosophy ; to her they have but 
slight personal interest, for, be it literature, theology, 



20 



or metaphysics, she thinks of it only in the concrete 
— the aesthetic. No matter what she proves, it is that 
undying motive-power of her sex which incites her 
— the love of conquest. But her face flushes with 
honest wrath when the duties and labors of her 
vocation are depreciated, and nature asserts itself 
over factitious philosophy. The ponderous style of 
her arguing mood vanishes, and the clear, terse lan- 
S'Liaee of her vernacular comes burstinof from her 
lips, in tones somewhat shrill and vehement. 

She looks with chill severity through the convex 
lens which make her gaze seem still more icy, upon 
the whining beggar, and refuses, in tones so quiet, 
yet so firm, that the mendicant declines to add his 
usual sickly plaint of thirteen children and no bread. 
But in the dusk of evening, clothed in her modest 
school-hat, her plainest shawl, and an abundant 
mantle of charity, she glides out to the sad home of 
a sick scholar, where lean poverty hides itself 
under the threadbare cloak of respectability. 

Her own scanty savings are drawn liberally upon 
for his comfort, and her classic mask of philosophy 
drops to reveal the surpassing loveliness of one of 
God's ministering angels. 

But in the solitary room of the chill boarding- 
house, to which her narrow income has condemned 
her, other and warmer fancies will introduce them- 
selves. She may, like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 

"Sit still 
On winter nights by lonely fires, and hope, 
To hear the nations praising her far off." 

But she is more likely to be sitting with dull fire, 



21 



and aching with sick heart, amid all her philosophy, 
for the placid comfort of something dependent and 
loving. All that elaborate misery she is so fond of 
depicting in her philosophizing moods as the 
teasing vexations of domestic infelicity has disap- 
peared in the gloom of her chamber, and she is once 
more the unaffected scholar, the gentle, kindly 
teacher, all human and all woman. We will not 
darken our picture by imagining her — perhaps despe- 
rate in her loneliness — to be deluded by the specious 
or mercenary airfection of some traitor lover, while 
in a midsummer-nieht's dream 



'i^' 



" She, poor lady, dotes, 
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatr}'-. 
Upon this spotted and inconstant man." 

Let us rather believe that her cold philosophy 
melts away in the generous sunlight of a happy 
home, and that in her reveries the sweet jangle of 
far-off wedding-bells are only anticipations of an as- 
sured reality. 

But what of the real everyday school-teacher — one 
of the twenty-five thousand of the State of New York 
— our flesh and-blood girl representative of that army 
of more than two hundred thousand of her sex 
which, in these United States, is arrayed against ig- 
norance and vice? If the occasional eccentricities of 
her profession are worth picturing by every pre- 
sumptuous hand, she is a subject for the master's 
pencil and palette. Perhaps it is the ruddy-cheeked, 
full-chested farmer's dauo-hter whose studies have 

o 

filled the intellectual measure of a rural academy, 
and who, adown some winding, high-bankecl country 



22 



road is tripping on a spring morning, to the little 
red school-house, that looks like a sentry-box perched 
on a bank to guard a neighboring wood. And so it 
is, thank God, a guard-house on the frontier line of 
an enemy's territory, and our little woman stands 
guard right soldierly against a most insidious and 
deadly foe. She does not look like it, brightly step- 
ping down that country lane, over which, but for the 
new dignity of school-mistress, she would take an 
honest race with the urchins who aire clambering 
and shouting by her side. In her full healthfulness 
and glee, inspired by the rich blood of the strong 
farmer-race from which she sprang, she heartily 
wishes it was the proper thing for her to untie that 
jaunty summer-hat, and, with it trailing by the 
strings, go chasing the apple-cheeked boys and girls 
across the neiorhborinor meadow. 

How came she here, armed with her meed of 
learning, enlisted in this war on ignorance ? Some- 
where back in her brief history an electric spark 
from the great galvanic-battery of knowledge awak- 
ened her dormant mind to a new life. Thought 
added to thought built up a soul in that healthy 
body, untenanted hitherto, or, if so, totally un- 
conscious of its occupant. As the world which 
book telescopes opened to her vision expanded, 
she became conscious that more strong-armed 
brothers were growing up around her than the 
scant farm would find sustenance for. One of 
these embryo agriculturists became infected with his 
sister's love of books, and him she determined to 
send to that Mecca of the devotees of learning — the 
college. But the resources of the narrow, hard- 



23 

tilled acres forbade the expenditure of even the 
meagre sum needed for that purpose, in this land of 
colleges. So she applied for and received the ap- 
pointment of teacher in that red sentry-box on the 
border of the wood, whither she is going on this spring 
morning, wishing she could swing her hat by its flut- 
tering ribbons and chase away across the adjoining 
meadow. The windows of this temple of learning, 
or rather of this modest porch to the ^temple, open 
on one side directly upon the narrow road, and on the 
other upon a field, now a meadow, but later in the 
season a4)asture, where a lowing herd of cattle range, 
sheltering themselves during the hot mid-day in the 
shade of the school-house. Sometimes Deacon 
Prayall's great bull comes bellowing defiantly under 
the open windows with a fit of belligerency, excited 
by the low of a distant rival, or, more probably, exas- 
perated by some wicked urchin who has slyly shook 
his red bandanna handkerchief out of the window. 
Our healthful school-mistress does not care for a 
romp on that meadow just now. And what do you 
think is the magnificent sum- total of her remunera- 
tion for this service of standing guard, and some- 
times actually skirmishing against the enemy with a 
switch from the conveniently neighboring wood ? 
Why, less than one hundred dollars of legal currency 
for a year's service, or rather for the six months to 
which her educational duties are confined by the 
economy of her patrons. In a year or two her suc- 
cess is so marked that some prowling superintendent, 
dull-eyed and fritter-brained as he may be, discovers 
her ability, and goes gossiping about, saying in the 
neighboring town, "Smart girl that of Farmer 



24 

Broadback's, up in District Twenty. She'll beat your 
long-legged college chap you've got over in the 
Union School." And so our ruddy country school- 
mam is translated to a two-story school-house, 
painted a dazzling white, instead of the sanguinary- 
litharge of that guard-house by the wood. 

The collegfian is from this time a better-dressed 
man, and on commencement day a demure but glad- 
looking young woman sits in fro'nt of him as he 
orates on the forum. How proudly and lovingly she 
looks at him, this clergyman in the milk, and wonders 
if she will live to bring father and mother some day 
to hear John preach. I don't know whether our 
little mistress continued in the Union School until the 
bright eyes grew dim enough for spectacles, went 
on a mission to China, or leaned tenderly on the arm 
of some' tall, broad-chested fellow, down the thorough- 
fare of life. If the last, I warrant the small round 
arm was clasped tightly between that great biceps 
and the broad chest. Accursed, thrice accursed 
of God and men and angels, be the wretch who 
shall loosen with insidious wiles that clasp, or darken 
their hearth-stone with the baleful shadow of a 
hateful presence ! 

Perhaps in the long vacation she ekes out her in- 
come by service, which in the towns would be 
thought degrading and menial, but in the wholesome 
regions of New Hampshire and Vermont is not 
deemed servile. During my summer tour through 
the extensive area of territory occupied by the range 
of the White Mountains, I was much interested by 
the peculiar character of the ladies and gentlemen 
who officiated as w^aiters at the hotels. It is by no 



25 

means a rhetorical stretch of veracity to say, that in 
all the graces of erudition, in classical and other 
scholastic attainments, they were vastly the superiors 
of the richly-dressed guests who sat at the tables 
attended by them. Several hundreds of the students 
of Amherst and Dartmouth Colleo^es and of the sem- 
inaries and academies of New England (and teachers 
of rural districts), found not only remunerative em- 
ployment, but a generous accession of health and 
vitality in their honorable service in the mountains. 
Nor were they without honest respect and honorable 
consideration by even the haughty devotees of fashion. 
The most supercilious of that long train had a more 
courteous and gentle air, in the presence of these 
educated and refined young men and women, who 
honored them by their own courteous attendance. 
A graduate of Harvard University officiated as din- 
ing-room usher at one hotel ; and a graduate of 
Amherst who was studying for the bar was his as- 
sistant. Not a few of the female waiters were school 
teachers, thus profitably employing and enjoying their 
vacation. 

Shall we look upon a darker picture, before which 
hangs a veil obscuring scenes that sorrow has al- 
ready sufficiently darkened? In the broad world 
of life there lies many a deep valley which the slant 
sun-rays of joy never brighten. Our gentle mistress 
sometimes descends sorrowfully, tearfully, down 
its rugged sides [for the husband she has chosen is 
not always just or gentle], and thereafter she dwells in 
its dreary shadow, until lifted by God's angels into the 
cloudless sunshine of his presence. There is many a 



26 

pretty Titania madly in love with a transformed 
Bottom, whose ass's ears are not adorned with eglan- 
tine ; whose features are akin to the self-drawn picture 
of Mirabeau : " A tiger's face pitted with the small- 
pox." But Titania sees only with crazed eyes, and her 
lunatic affection has clothed him with the beauty of 
Adonis. His soul may be a fit companion for its 
brutal lodgrment, dvvellino- for ever in hateful contriv- 
ings against the peace and love he hates and scorns, 
yet her sick fancy has made it radiant with the halo 
of a seraph. 

He may come to her feculent with the impurity 
of infamy, or reeking with the fumes of his mid- 
night orgies, and her dead senses convey no alarm 
to her doting heart. 

He carries desolation and sorrow wherever he groes. 
His foot-fall on the doorstep is a knell to his friend's 
household ; his words, poison ; his presence, death. 
And yet, supported by that mysterious sleep-walking 
instinct which perceives nothing by the senses, she 
lives and loves throuo-h all. Vulvar in his manners 
— brutal in his instincts — foul in his morals — traitor 
in his friendship — and false in his love, he is the 
type and climax of heroism and manhood to her per- 
verted sense. And so, till he abandons her a wreck 
floating out upon that ocean which is always ebbing, 
farther and farther into the shadow, and beyond 
which is no port, no continent or island, which human 
eye has ever seen. 

Over this picture let the curtain fall. The mists 
and clouds which darken it can never shut it from 
our mental vision, but a brighter, because a holier 
one, will substitute its radiant scenes. 



27 

Our gentle world of modest instructors is not 
without its saints ; even if poor in the sterner virtue 
of martyrs. The cloisters do not contain all who have 
devoted themselves to perpetual self-abnegation, 
chastity, and good works. 

One such I knew — yes, know — though long since 
not of this world. Her school children had been 
noted for the sweetness and pathos of their singing. 
When the full chorus of their well-trained voices 
carolled joyously, like a flock of uncaged birds, or 
melted away in some plaintive note that told of 
human grief and angelic pity, or rose in swelling 
strains of exultation over the sorrows of earth, the 
passers in the neighboring street paused, listening to 
the sweet rapture-tones, until the unwilling tears 
forced themselves from eyes long dried in the fierce 
heat of screed and strife of commerce or ambition. 

There were those who thought they heard the voices 
of their own beloved children, that died long years 
ago, heard as echoes from the far-off heaven ; but 
some, whose thoughts ever after dwelt upon the 
ravishing sweetness of a broken strain which 
reached them, they knew not from whence, always 
half-believed they had heard the singing of the holy 
children, that stand in white robes before the divine 
Teacher, whose lessons were given on the slopes of 
Olivet. 

And thenceforth these went about with a low 
refrain of infant music lingering in their ears, and 
perhaps tuning their souls to a better life. 

Did the gentle songs she had taught her sweet- 
voiced pupils make her envious of that holy choir, 
chanting far beyond the sea of Galilee ? 



28 

Day by day she faded, and long before the dark 
angel's wings waved over her pallid face, she, too, 
heard the voices of an infinite host of children sing- 
ing, and in her sick fancy she knew the tones 
of some whom she had taught ; and so, listening 
raptured, her soul floated out beyond the cloud and 
shadow which hides that choir from us. 

But not alone in those modest structures on green 
lanes, or bordered by woods and meadows, are to 
be found the self-denial, patience, and talent which 
are devoted to dispelling the darkness of igno- 
rance. 

Our rural teacher has sisters, who, eager to know 
more of that bustling world which every summer 
sends its idlers and convalescents strolling by her 
school-door ; stray off to the great cities, and there 
find that their firm muscles and healthy brains fit 
them to cope with their metropolitan cousins. They 
find, too, that self-devotion and zeal are not confined 
to those of rural birth, but that the teeming city 
breeds its hundreds of noble-hearted women who 
bravely maintain the struggle of knowledge against 
ignorance. In a metropolitan city there is a district 
where poverty is queen, and sways her sceptre over 
thousands of pallid subjects at whose cabin doors 
sits lean Hunger, and within Disease an unbidden 
guest, hollow-eyed and spectral, lingers always. 
In this noisome and pestilential territory the teeming 
multitudes of little humanities had found that price- 
less blessing, a wise and faithful teacher — a woman 
of more than ordinary culture, possessed of qualities 
of mind and graces of person, that made her a wel- 



29 

come euest and an envied friend. She assumed the 
guardianship of this host of Httle savages when 
a great pubhc school was founded in the midst of 
their squalid habitations. In their persons, scarcely 
concealed by unseemly rags, and in their faces, 
hardly recognizable, from day to day, by new 
accretions of dirt and smudge, the teacher, by sheer 
force of conscience, compelled her sensibilities to 
perceive nothing but sacred humanity. In their 
feeble intellects, she saw only torpidity; and in their 
perverted morals, nothing but ignorance. 

Beneath the grime and gloom she perceived In 
each squalid little form a sleeping soul — a chrysalis 
which could be wakened Into immortal beauty. 
And so. In her hearty, simple faith she could see how 
ignorance and vice were to be charmed away from 
poverty and sorrow; by the gentle influences of 
kindness and education. Oh ! holy and beautiful 
charity ; though gracious and winning in all, how 
resplendent in supernal loveliness art thou in 
womanhood. 

I cannot here recite the incidents of that lone bat- 
tie with Ignorance and his pallid sister Vice. Day 
after day, and week after week, she struggled with 
depraved habits, with reckless and wanton defiance, 
and resentment of her Instructions, yet day after day 
she was gaining a more defensible lodgment in this 
stronghold of misery. 

Aided by a determined will, a strong, full-pulsing 
heart, and woman's trustfulness, she wrought at last 
a wondrous change, and when another brave woman, 
with equal intelligence and heartfulness, devoted her- 
self to the same task, in another part of this debat- 



30 

able land, where " night and morning were at meet- 
ing," the work was already half-accomplished. The 
lady who had become so powerful an auxiliary saw 
that complete victory could only be obtained by 
storming the enemy's stronghold, and conquering the 
vicious domestic habits. So, enforced by her corps 
of gentle yet brave assistants, she commenced a new 
crusade. 

The dirtiest of the little barbarians were accord- 
ingly subjected to a system of detergent scouring, 
which often resulted in producing a stranger face 
beneath the mask of grime, who ran the risk of re- 
jection from his astonished parents. Their ragged 
garments, patched and mended into decency, not un- 
frequently added to the illusion. 

Those reformed street gipsies were thus deputed 
as missionaries of cleanliness to their own homes, 
and not unfrequently were followed by these un- 
daunted ladles, who enforced the lesson their labors 
sueafested. 

These gracious toils were not bestowed in vain, 
and if the irrefutable testimony of facts regarding their 
success can yield them any gratification, they ought 
to reap ^abundant pleasure from its contemplation. 
Orderly, neat, and intelligent pupils now throng 
from homes of exceeding penury and destitution, yet 
wholesome in their cleanliness. Wherever generous 
self-denial and modest but o'ercoming labor for 
others' good are appreciated, let these ladies' services 
for humanity and learning be honored and esteemed. 
Of one such sang our own Longfellow: 

She dwells by great Kenhawa's side, 
In valleys green and cooi, 



31 

And all her hope and all her pride 
Are in her village school. 

Her soul, like the transparent air 

That robes the hills above, 
Though net of earth, encircles there 

All things with arms of love. 

And thus she walks amid her girls, 

With praise and mild rebukes ; 
Subduing e'en rude village churls, 

By her angelic looks. 

As I approach the threshold of school-houses 
wheie such labors have been performed (and there 
are more than one in this city), I am sensible of an 
o'ercoming tenderness that befits more properly an- 
other sex. But when I look along the ranks of up- 
turned faces, youthful in physiognomical proportions, 
but aged with premature care and privation, while 
behind the senile mask fitful gleams of childish 
laughter are struggling, it is then I find the tears lie 
near the surface and hard to be repressed. 

But we must not think of our everyday school- 
mistress, as all instructress and little of woman. 

The drilling in hard facts has not squeezed out the 
warm blood of gentleness from her veins and left 
her nothino; but ossified channels of circulation, with- 
out a generous pulse in them to beat in sympathy 
with a child's sorrows. The dreadful formulas which 
harrow the souls of so many little urchins under the 
Gradgrind system of instruction, arouse a tender 
pity in her for the puzzled brains and aching hearts 
appalled at the formidable tasks before them. 

You remember that exquisite satire of Dickens on 
an iron course of study, which that eminent teacher, 



32 

Mr. McChoakumchild, declared Cissy Jupe had per- 
versely failed to get any benefit from. He reported 
to the committee " that she had a very dense head 
for figures ; that, once possessed with a general idea 
of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable in- 
terest in its exact measurements ; that she was ex- 
tremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some 
pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith ; 
that she would burst into tears on being required (by 
the mental process — now called intellectual arithmetic) 
immediately to name the cost of two hundred and 
forty-seven muslin night-caps at fourteen pence half- 
penny each; that after an eight weeks' course in 
the elements of political economy, she had only yes- 
terday replied to the question, " What is the first 
principle of the science of political economy ? " with 
the absurd answer, " To do to others as I would that 
they should do to me." 

The local committee of the day were horrified at 
this monstrous proposition of the duties of govern- 
ments, and Mr, Gradgrind observed, shaking his 
head: "That all this was very bad, that it showed 
the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of know- 
ledge as per S3^stem (course of study), schedule, blue- 
book, report, and tabular statements A to Z ; and 
that Jupe must be kept to it. So Cissy Jupe was 
kept to it, and became very low-spirited, but no 
wiser." 

Our flesh-and-blood school-mistress has little in 
sympathy with Mr. Choakumchild and his iron sys- 
tem, and yet her voice gets somewhat shrill, and her 
intonations border on the vehement, when her in- 
structions are wantonly violated, or she has dealings 



in the after- school hours with the reprobate or indo- 
lent. I am not fond of contemplating her at any- 
thing but her best, and yet I am not sorry that the 
saccharine constitution of her disposition, is gently 
acidulated, by the citric acid of high spirit and some 
temper. 

The everyday life which seems so commonplace 
and tame, when passed within the walls of the school- 
room is not without its evidences of heroism. An oc- 
cupation assumed at first with the baldest purposes of 
thrift, becomes clothed in after-years with something 
almost sacred, as the power for good or ill slowly 
but unceasingly develops its dread extent to the edu- 
cated sense. At first, it seems a feeble scope for the 
employment of the full intellect of man or woman 
aspiring perhaps to literary or social distinction, and 
impatient of the paltry details and petty restraints of 
school life ; perhaps always urged on in study or in- 
vestigation by that indefinable longing with which the 
curse of Eve's transgression has infected the acquisi- 
tion of learning. But as the avenues to influence 
over the dawning intellects in her charge open wider 
and lengthen, the importance of securing their occu- 
pation before ignorance has closed, or superstition 
narrowed them ; — her vocation is elevated in her ap- 
preciation. It is indeed a task, if you consider it 
rightfully, full of awe, and not to be lightly entered 
upon. They are not few in number in whose percep- 
tion this sentiment has grown to apprehension — 
grown until a sense of awful responsibility oppresses 
their consciences with a weight they can neither less- 
en nor escape. The incompleteness of all modes of 



34 

tuition becomes painfully apparent, and the imperfec- 
tion of much of its machinery saddens and disheart- 
ens them. The waste of a human life seems such a 
dreadful loss ; and they arraign themselves some- 
times with it as the result of their negligence for an ■ 
hour. During the period of my more intimate and 
official relations with the teachers of Brooklyn, noth- 
ing has affected me more deeply, than the prevalence 
of this constantly increasing re'sponsibility. The pe- 
culiarities of its exhibition and the incidents associ- 
ated with it, would form a curious chapter in the 
history of education. More than once I have been 
requested by ladies with such especial and almost tear- 
ful earnestness, to anticipate the period of examina- 
tion of their classes, that the curiosity which my sex 
possesses in common with theirs, impelled me to seek 
the reason for such vehement pertinacity. It was 
not, however, until the period of an impending event 
became imminent, that cheir maidenly reserve yielded 
to their apprehensions, and they informed me that 
unless my examination of their classes could take 
place immediately, their wedding-day must be post- 
poned. For even with that one event close approach- 
ing, which crowns with its golden coronet a maiden's 
life, the intense subjection of their souls to the high 
duty they had assumed, forbade its abandonment 
without official approval of their services, as a 
sort of treason. 

Need I say that such delicate consciousness of 
duty, seemed to bestow additional loveliness on forms 
and features already sufficiently endowed with grace 
and beaut3^ 

May the melody of their wedding-bells fill long 



35 

and happy lives with their blessed music, and be 
heard dying away in the distance like an echo, when 
that saddest peal of all is tolling ! 

But keen susceptibility to the exacting duties of 
your profession is not confined to those who succeed 
in it. 

Application was once made to me by a lady, whose 
scholarship and ability abundantly fitted her for the 
task, for appointment to a vacancy in a primary de- 
partment. The lady, I was confident by personal 
knowledge, possessed every quality which could as- 
sure me of her ultimate success, and I was happy in 
being able at once to comply with her request. The 
position was not by any means commensurate in 
grade, with the high qualities of which she was in pos- 
session, and the compensation was correspondingly 
meagre. I was, however, fully aware that the small 
remuneration was of no light importance ; nay, was 
of almost absolute necessity to her. My surprise, 
therefore, was extreme, when, before the lapse of a 
month, she called upon me to tender her resignation, 
saying with quiet, yet firm dignity, that she had dis- 
covered that the tuition of a class of that grade was 
a task she was not fitted for ; and the sense of her 
failure to accomplish all which it had the right to de- 
mand, compelled her to resign. 

Her eminent capabilities and accomplishments 
found a channel for their utility ; her self-abnegation 
and honesty brought a just reward ; for her genius 
not long after opened a path to reach a height of 
fame which is the fortune of but few of her sex. 

The authoress of many esteemed books, and the 



translator and editress of meritorious works from the 
French, she now presides over a noble journal of 
such popularity and profit that her remuneration is not 
exceeded by that of any editor in this country. 

Nor are instances of heroism confined to in-" 
structors ; for as you become more intimately ac- 
quainted with the fortunes and needs of your pupils, 
you will discover qualities of mind, and instances of 
heroic self-denial, which will elicit your interest and 
excite your admiration. You will see the evidences 
of bitter, stinging poverty, struggling with eager sen- 
sibility, at once to hide its necessities and to provide 
for the education of loved ones, as a means of admis- 
sion to respectability and usefulness. I can never 
withhold the tribute of my deep respect, for hundreds 
of such heroes and heroines of the domestic field of 
honor. One that always affects my sensibility, near 
to the borders of manly self-control, I cannot resist 
the temptation to relate to you. In a school of this 
city, where the hard necessities of poverty, for ever 
warring with an insatiate appetite for learning, finds 
many of its youthful victims, one family especially 
afford a noble example of the conquest of intellectual 
over physical necessities. 

It consists of seven gentle, well-trained child- 
ren, supported by the labor of a father whose 
hio-hest waees, never exceed the enviable remuner- 
ation of two dollars per day. Every session of the 
school finds all of these devotees of learning in 
attendance, orderly in manners, neat in dress, and 
scholarly in their duties. The home from which they 
come, humble to the last degree of penury, seems to 
me enshrined in a halo of sanctity, which makes it 
Grander than a cathedral. 



37 

Forty years have come and gone since an iii- 
structress of girls made a city on the Hudson cele- 
brated for the excellence of her school, almost as 
widely as it has since been for its gigantic works in 
iron. A woman whose intellectuality would have 
distinguished her in literature ; whose strong, firm 
sense would have conquered success in great com- 
mercial enterprise ; whose logical and healthy brain 
would have oiven her eminence at the bar ; and 
whose eloquence and piety assured her of distinction 
in the pulpit, established here an institution of 
learning which made her influence felt for three 
generations. Although the style and title of her 
school had no more pretentious claim than "Young 
Ladies' Seminary," yet she was effectually the presi- 
dent of a college, as potent in its influence on the 
intellects and culture of the time, as any of the more 
imposing universities. The very atmosphere of her 
school was vitalized by intellectual ozone, that stimu- 
lated the minds of her pupils to the highest exertion. 
Such elasticity and inspiration did they draw from it, 
that even those mental organisms which seemed 
feeble or dormant, were vivified by it to a high 
intellectuality, and grew strong under her training. 
All that was possible in the scope and range of 
thought of her pupils she evolved; and there went 
out from her seminary, during the thirty years she 
ruled over it, many hundreds of cultivated and 
scholarly young women, whose influence in dissem- 
inating refinement and stimulating the acquisition 
of learning, was felt for half a century at the bar, in 
the halls of legislation, in the sacred desk, the con- 
duct of public journals, in literature, in art and com- 
merce. 



38 

Her vigorous mentalit)' and scrupulous industry 
impelled all minds along the channel of her intellect, 
and activity was constandy induced by such words as 
those of the wise Hebrew kino-: 

" Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy 
might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor know- 
ledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest." 

"Do you not know;" — we may suppose she thus 
enforces the injunction; — "that to some young hu- 
manity here each day's tuition may be the last, as 
it is possible each may be yours." ■ 

"And do you remember what Empedocles says in 
his quaint old denunciation of the Agrigentines, 
whose city was filled with massive and gorgeous 
buildings, while its citizens were sunk in luxury and 
debauchery : — That they abandoned themselves to 
voluptuousness as if every day was to be their last ; 
and they built as if they were never to die ? — Now, 
reflect that the sensuous old theology of the Greeks 
taught them to enjoy the present to its highest, 
because the future was uncertain — the purer philoso- 
phy of the Christian impels him to make the future 
certain by using well the present." 

Thus this wise instructress taught the troops of 
laughing, pleasure-loving girls which thronged her 
school, to become not only well-bred and learned wo- 
men, but intelligent, sagacious, true, and loving wives 
and mothers ; from whom sprang a race of sons and 
daughters, with a reverence for learning, a love of 
o-oodness, and an honest hatred of the false and un- 
just, which has not yet, thank heaven ! died out in 
their descendants. 

If there was any one train of excellence which was 



39 

pre-eminent in this noble teacher, it was her detesta- 
tion of shams, and wherever a fallacy or an affec- 
tation showed its hateful presence, her resistless scorn 
for ever deprived it of the power to deceive. 

Eminent in learning- and its diffusion, Mrs. Willard 
was equally distinguished in literature and science. 
As an authoress, her works gave her fame only less 
extended than her tuition, and her labors in the cause 
of humanity would have been deemed great had she 
not already such celebrity as an instructress. 

When, full of days and honors, this excellent lady — 
learned, wise, and discreet — was slowly yielding her 
soul to immortality, there was many a proud and 
noble matron, many a beautiful and gentle woman, 
adown whose cheeks stole the tears of gfrief and affec- 
tion — and so, loving and beloved, she went to her 
rest. 

Thirty years ago, I commenced my association with 
education as an instructor in the Island City — foster- 
mother of our own, and twenty years are almost 
closing their cycle of a score, since I was selected to 
direct its interests in the Board of Education. 

Along this extended plane of life, whose farther 
extreme is vanishing into the dim obscure of a past 
eternity, my retrospective view perceives a thousand 
forms of those youthful instructors, who thronged 
each year with hopefulness and anticipation, whom 
it was my good fortune to foster or induct into 
their coveted places as teachers. In that period more 
than three thousand young girls have risen from the 
rank of pupils to the commissions of instructors ; 
and thirty-six thousand have finished the higher 



40 

course of studies, and perhaps as wives and mothers, 
are now inspiring their offspring with lessons, learned 
from tongues which are for ever silent in this world. 

I look down the long vista of faces, back-turned to 
me from the farther land, and I see a thousand sad- 
dened, and a thousand glad. Some, refined by sor- 
row, seemed to lose even here the grossness of mor- 
tality, and to acquire the spiritual essence long before 
their souls were freed from its earth-born encum- 
brance. And some, O relentless, inseparable twins 
of Destiny, Shame, and Sorrow ! how remorselessly 
ye pursued the poor fugitive souls to their death — not 
death, indeed, either, though they died long ago 
to the better life — the sweet maidens whom I knew 
with breath daintier than summer violets, and 
thoughts pure as an infant's dreams. 

Drop the curtain over these pictures of hope and sor- 
row. The shadows are gathering faster and faster, 
and are enclosing from mortal vision the forms of 
those we loved and mourn. And the one thought 
which stretches out its infinite long-ina-s towards them 
for ever retreating into the shadow, is : Were they 
better for my life ? 



LIBRAKY Uh UONUHtSb 



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